Complete with hail.
I love snow, but hail is pretty neat, too. When it is this size, at least, and doesn’t fall long enough to batter the beejeebers out of newly-leafed-out vegetation. (So far, I’ve just seen a few maple trees in flower—one is in my front yard, and I passed another farther inland that had already dropped flower bits all over the road shoulder.)
This bit-smaller-than-a-pea stuff was large enough to pass as real hail although it was, thankfully, quite a bit smaller than some of the hail I remember from childhood. "I remember when the hail broke windows…" she says in a wavery old lady’s voice. (Eep, I’ve begun to use the words, "when I was a kid"! Another age milestone I would rather not have reached.)
There was, of course, the requisite thunder to go along with the hail shower. I’ve heard worse (more impressive) concussions, but the over-saturated ground was acting as a great conductor for the pressure waves. There seemed to me to be an extra sort of up and down effect as the house shook—or rather, as it jumped.
The spring peepers around my property did beat the thunderstorm by a day. I was glad to finally hear them; I am usually the last to complain about too much rain, but this winter has been wet enough to drown a frog…
